{"id":108,"date":"2005-12-06T15:18:29","date_gmt":"2005-12-06T15:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/index.php\/2005\/12\/06\/is-skype-losing-it\/"},"modified":"2005-12-06T15:18:29","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T15:18:29","slug":"is-skype-losing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2005\/12\/06\/is-skype-losing-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Skype losing it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even a few months later, the sheer size of the eBay-Skype deal<\/a> still boggles the mind: $2.6-billion (U.S.) at a minimum, and as much as $4.1-billion if certain goals are met. All this for a company that hopes to have revenue of about $60-million this year, and (possibly) as much as $200-million next year. <\/p>\n

The on-line auction site and its defenders say the price they have agreed to pay is justified because Skype<\/a> is growing at triple-digit rates, both in terms of users and revenue. And they say the acquisition makes sense for eBay<\/a> in two ways: Because Skype is a great brand, and because the company’s free voice-over-Internet service can be integrated with the auction provider’s existing business.<\/p>\n

Those two pillars supporting the deal are not carved in stone, however. The first — the power of the Skype brand — is a very fickle thing, since it rests on a service that is not only free but one that can be duplicated relatively easily. Obviously, free services in a highly competitive market can succeed (Google<\/a> is an obvious example, although it has proprietary search algorithms) but the risks are high, particularly in the on-line world, where the consumer’s allegiance can shift almost overnight.<\/p>\n

And what about the second pillar — the idea that Skype could be integrated with eBay’s auctions to allow a “click to call” feature that would connect buyer and seller? That is still a question mark, and one which recently grew larger, after the head of a leading eBay “power sellers” group<\/a> said that he and his members didn’t see any benefit to using Skype. Combine that with speculation about how eBay is taking over the VOIP company’s management, and that $4.1-billion bet the auction company made looks even larger.<\/p>\n

for the rest of this column, please visit globeandmail.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Update:<\/b><\/p>\n

Rob Hyndman uses Skype’s travails to make a great point about some of the risks of starting new ventures when technology is so cheap and users are so fickle: he calls it “the best of times and the worst of times<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even a few months later, the sheer size of the eBay-Skype deal still boggles the mind: $2.6-billion (U.S.) at a minimum, and as much as $4.1-billion if certain goals are met. All this for a company that hopes to have revenue of about $60-million this year, and (possibly) as much as $200-million next year. The … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Is Skype losing it?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}